Discussing the "nine chapters" of mathematics without the Nine Chapters in eighteenth-century Korea : the case of Cho T'ae-Gu (The study of the history of mathematics 2016)

Abstract

In this article, the author discusses a mathematical manuscript Chusŏ kwangyŏn (1718) written by a Korean noble scholar Cho T'ae-Gu (1660-1723). After reviewing the composition, contents and knowledge structure of the text, the author concludes that mathematicians of late-17th and early-18th centuries in Korea had a traditional East Asian knowledge structure of nine categories, although they did not have the entirety of the classical Nine Chapters at hand, to absorb and transform mathematics from China's Song-Yuan period and from the West. And Korean mathematicians in that period used freely what knowledge they had regardless of its origins to solve problems.